


Music

by musiclvr1112



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrinath August, M/M, Music, adrinath august 2k18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 13:02:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15641283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musiclvr1112/pseuds/musiclvr1112
Summary: Adrinath August Day 10:Wrong Number|Music





	Music

 

I never loved the piano. I didn’t hate it, but it wasn’t my passion like it’s supposed to be.

When I was little, I would watch my mother place her fingers on the keys, and I knew even then that I didn’t love the piano, because I could so clearly see what it meant to love the piano right there in front of me. She wasn’t just playing an instrument, she was conversing with a dear friend, caressing a loved one. Sometimes she would close her eyes and the gentlest of smiles would don her lips and she would sink into the music, letting go of past and future and thought to just be present in the moment. To hear and enjoy and immerse herself in the beauty she was making.

I always admired that. But I knew from the start that the piano would never be for me what it was for her.

My skill improved over time, and eventually one could even call me a pianist. I never liked the label for myself, though. Because to me, a pianist was someone like my mother who forged an otherworldly bond with the instrument, or someone like the composers that gave their heart and soul to music. For me, it was just a hobby. There was no passion in the piano for me, no heart. It was fun, and enabled me to translate ink on paper into tunes in the air, but I never made the music _move,_ not like the real pianists did.

When I met Nathaniel, I saw in him that same passion that my mother had with the keys. Only his was with a pencil. When set to work, those teal eyes could see nothing but the sketch before him. He didn’t hear, didn’t see, didn’t feel anything but the art. Once, after fencing practice, I found him still sitting at his desk in the classroom because he just couldn’t pull himself away from his sketchbook long enough to leave. I had never before seen a look of such intense focus and inspiration on someone’s face. It was beautiful.

When I asked him to teach me to draw, I realized that I wasn’t an artist just like I wasn’t a pianist. I could sketch a figure on paper and people would commend it, but Nathaniel breathed life into his artwork. Something about the act of making art resonated deep within his soul, and the result was that the final product in the eye of the beholder held so much more than just aesthetic value. He was a true artist.

The agreement was that in return for art lessons, I would teach him the piano. I warned him that I didn’t play like he drew, but he insisted that it didn’t matter. He could already somewhat read music, he just wanted to be able to press the keys.

That was when I really started to like piano a lot more. And when I became grateful that my father had made me continue playing even when my mother was gone.

Nathaniel wasn’t a pianist either. He didn’t have that same drive, that inspired passion with music that he did with art. But he liked to translate, just like I did. He liked finding notes on a page and turning them into something a blind person could enjoy.

“Music is art for the ears,” he had once said. “A different face of the same being.”

Our hours sitting at the piano together slowly grew to be my favorite hours of the day. We would talk and laugh while we plunked out notes. On a challenging part, he would set his fingers over mine and I would play for him so that he could feel the notes for himself. I taught him my favorite songs, and he brought new ones he wanted to learn. We weren’t great, but it was still music that we were producing with the instrument, and it was beautiful.

When Nathaniel left for America, I told myself I would keep playing, if nothing else so that I could play with him when he returned. But my fingers on the keys were lifeless, so without joy when I was on my own. The piano had become a social instrument, and playing it any other way felt empty.

Then when Nathaniel did come back, I didn’t know how to ask him to play with me anymore.

So the piano sat untouched for years, waiting in solitude for someone to play it, until the day arrived when it caught Nathaniel’s eye.

“This is the same piano, isn’t it?” he asked. “The one we used to play when we were kids.”

His smile was bittersweet like good news on a sad day as he brushed his fingers over the keys.

“I haven’t actually played since I left,” he admitted. “It didn’t really feel right without…”

He trailed off, but what words he spoke said enough.

“Me neither,” I said, and his smile then became warmer than I had seen it before. He turned those eyes of admiration from the keys to me and held out his hand.

“Will you play with me?”

I smiled, all those years of loneliness burning away in the glow that he created.

“I would love to.”

And together, we made music.


End file.
